A Day in the Life
by petthekat
Summary: A one-shot featuring a day in the life of the next generation Hamato clan, along with pieces from each of the Hamato children. Set in the Ryoshuu/Penance universe. Silly and pointless.
1. A Day in the Life

Author's Note: So I've had a long stressful week and the new few months will only grow more stressful. My response to this is to imagine turtles. And where does my mind go?

To the next generation of Hamatos, of course.

Enjoy this one-shot of a day in the life of the turtles and their families (following the Penance and Ryoshuu timeslines). If at any point the identity of the children grow confusing to you, remember: **every kid's name starts with the same letter as his or her turtle parent.**

Anywhoo.

* * *

The dojo was quiet. For now.

Leonardo paced, his hands behind his back, blue eyes sharp and focused. Back and forth he moved, unblinking and unrelenting in his inspection. Then, without warning, he barked out a name.

"Luka!"

A slim Asian boy of twelve stepped forward with a twirl of his _kamayari._

"Damon!"

A taller teen with a crop of strawberry blond hair moved, _nunchucks_ whistling soundly in his hands, relaxed.

"Daniella!"

A ruby-haired young woman next, stunning black _tessen_ skillfully tossed in each hand.

"Mira!"

Tiny and bushy-haired, a girl of fifteen was nearly dwarfed by the pair of katana she wielded with a wily grin.

"Roman!"

Last, a tall, broad-shouldered young man appeared with a cocky smirk, a pair of lethal _chigiriki_ snapping forward with a deadly crack. Leonardo paced the line of teens and came to stand at their center.

" _Hajime_!"

* * *

"Oh man," Damon groaned as they left the dojo. "That was rough."

His twin shrugged a kink out of her shoulder. "Just wait until tomorrow," she muttered exhaustedly. "Rooftop training with Uncle Raph." Behind them, the eldest of the lot gave a happy whoop.

"Hell yeah," exclaimed Roman. "That's my favorite." As they rounded into the kitchen, a turtle came into view, one elbow balanced on the counter as he read from a newspaper. A mischievous grin split the Roman's features. "Speak of the devil," he whispered.

Hopping into the kitchen, he darted around Raphael and knocked the turtle's propped arm out from underneath him. "Watcha' doin' old man?" he smirked. Raphael yelped and nearly fell over before he rounded on the teen, and even though Roman tried to leap out of the way, Raphael managed to snatch him up in a grapple.

"You little punk! Come 'ere!"

"Whoa!" Mira ducked out of the way to avoid being trampled, because now Raphael and Roman were destroying the kitchen in their furious brawl. "Just trying to get some food here, people!"

"Mom's bringing us some," Daniella collapsed onto a stool in at the kitchen island, her cellphone already in hand as she typed away a rushed message. Mira snatched up her dodgy old baseball cap and put it firmly back on its usual backwards position atop her head. Her untamed brunette hair poked out from underneath like a mushroom cloud.

"Awesome," she said, plopping onto another stool across from the twins. Luka, silent and unaffected by the chaos as usual, took a seat at the end of the counter. Finally through with his roughhousing, Roman came to a stop at the counter just as his youngest cousin stood and pushed up on his tiptoes to reach the paper towels on the top of the fridge. Luka was small and had little hope of growing very tall, but it hardly mattered. At 6'1, Roman dwarfed all of their cousins, not just tiny Luka.

"Here ya go," Roman plucked the paper towels down and handed them to Luka, and the two exchanged smiles. They had the greatest age difference between them, but that didn't stop them from being close.

"Thanks," murmured Luka. They took seats next to each other at the kitchen island.

"Oh my god!" Daniella jumped up excitedly from her seat, her eyes glued on her phone. "Damy, I need a spotlight!" Her brother reached in his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight to shine on her.

"Why do you indulge her?" murmured Roman with a smirk.

"Makes my life easier," grinned Damon.

"This is the moment you have all been waiting for!" declared the sixteen year old female. "Yes, you are correct. Matthew Laird has asked me to go out with him Friday night." She beamed and flicked a piece of red hair out of her pretty freckled face.

Roman and Mira made identical whistling noises while twirling their index fingers. "Whoop," added Mira. Dani's expression dead-panned before she resumed her seat, prompting Mira to pick up an empty cereal box, toss it up in the air and then smack it with a dough roller. It flew across the kitchen and straight into wall, where it promptly fell into the trash bin below.

"Yeah!" she shouted with a triumphant grin. "That's that Hamato swing right there, baby!" She flexed and shifted in a semi-circle, nodding and winking at her admiring fans while her cousins rolled their eyes and snickered in turn.

"Food's here!" April Hamato rushed in, arms laden with bags of carryout food, all of which was instantly removed and placed in front of the ravenous teenagers. "Whoa, geez. Like a bunch of lions in here," she rolled her eyes before offering affectionate pats on the head for her two. "How's training going?"

"Brutal."

"Same."

"Boring."

"Awesome."

After a long pause, everyone looked over at Luka, who peered up from his styrofoam plate of food and offered a small smile before he returned his attention to his chopsticks and shoved some noodles in his mouth. The conversation resumed in earnest again, deafening in its volume.

"I hope we don't have to do anymore of those pull-ups," said Daniella with a sigh, and at the questioning looks from the others, she shrugged. "I don't want to look like a pro-wrestler, okay? Defined muscles on girls are not okay."

"Oh, what a load of crap," Mira said around a mouthful of noodles, most of which she had to suck hurriedly back into her mouth, earning a disgusted look from her only female cousin. "Guys dig muscles."

"It's true," said Damon, and Roman and even Luka offered agreeing nods.

Daniella rolled her eyes and addressed them each in turn with a point of her polished finger, starting with her twin and then pointing to Luka and Roman.

"You're _gay_ , you're twelve, and you date skanks." She turned her attention back to her phone. "Your opinions are null and void."

Mira said dryly, "She gets more charming with every day."

"Like a blossoming flower," Roman waved his hands grandly. The teens dug into their food, rare silence making its way into the lair that had been their fathers' childhood home. However, when Raphael re-entered the kitchen, Roman jumped to his feet.

"Heyyyyy," he skidded to a stop right in front of Raphael. "So, about that motorcycle."

Raphael opened the fridge and didn't look at him. "Not until you turn -" he paused, his motions freezing as he stopped himself mid-sentence, alarm growing as Roman's devious grin amplified.

"Not until I'm what? What was that, Dad? Huh? Not until I'm _how old?"_ And then he burst out, before Raphael could speak. "Not until I'm eighteen! And guess what?" He thrust a fist triumphantly in the air, his muscled bulk looking ridiculously child-like in his glee.

"Two more weeks!" he crowed. "EIGHTEEN!"

Raphael groaned and slapped a hand over his face, making Roman drop his hands. "Oh, come on! You've had a motorcycle since you were fifteen!"

The turtle in question folded his arms. "Oh, yeah? How would you know that?"

"Uncle Mikey told me," he smirked.

"You gotta get it past your mother," said Raphael before he and Roman left the kitchen, still bantering in a way that would almost certainly lead to more rough and tumble scuffles that honestly should have left someone with a broken arm, but somehow never did.

At the counter, Mira leaned over and peered at what Luka was doodling on his napkin. "That's good," she whispered to the youngest cousin, her smile encouraging. Luka returned it with a shy shrug. "Are you still planning on asking Uncle Leo and Aunt Ame for a drawing tablet?"

The youth sighed. "I don't know," he murmured.

"You should," Mira gripped his arm and gave him a light shake. "You're really good! Just talk to them."

Luka tilted his head at the small drawing and his lips lifted in a smile. "Maybe I could ask for Christmas," he said softly, and Mira nodded enthusiastically in reply. Then she turned back to her food, which she shoved into her mouth with little to no decorum.

"Chew with your mouth closed!" Daniella groaned, to which Mira responded by opening her mouth wider and smacking on her noodles. Dani shrieked and slapped her hands on the counter. "Gross, Mira! Stop!" When her cousin only laughed wildly in response, Daniella turned to her twin. "Damy, a little support please!"

Without looking up from his food, Damon picked up a magazine and held it in front of Daniella's face so she could no longer see Mira. His twin relaxed. " _Thank you,_ " she said haughtily.

"Geez," muttered Mira on the other side of the magazine, still squelching as loudly as possible on her food. "You are such a baby. Get off my balls already."

"Mira!" snapped a voice, and the remaining cousins looked up to see Michelangelo standing in the doorway, his arms folded. "How many times have I told you not to say that?"

"Aw, Dad -"

"Ten flips. Go."

Mira shrieked. "Wha – I just got done with training!"

"You did it to yourself," said the turtle casually, entering the kitchen with a wiggle of his finger in her direction. "Go. Now." Groaning loudly, Mira jumped up from her seat and snatched off her hat, which she dropped on the counter so she could step just outside the kitchen.

With an irritated grunt, she bounced into a back handspring, her feet and hands slapping on the cold lair floor. _Clip Clop._ "One," she grunted. _Clip Clop._ "Two."

Mikey turned back to the counter with a shake of his head, even as he secretly smirked at April as she re-entered the kitchen. Glancing over her shoulder, she let out a quiet laugh. "Was she talking about balls again?"

"Yes," Mikey said, exasperated.

 _Clip Clop._ "Three." Mira's voice floated in from the living room from, out of sight. _Clip Clop. "_ Four."

"Oh," April perked up. "I ended up having to cancel the class I was going to teach, so I'll be able to make Mira's softball game after all."

 _Clip Clop._ "Five." _Clip Clop._ "Six."

Mikey smiled. "That's great! I'm glad they built that new stadium. It's so much easier for me to watch from those rafters. And it's closer to the concession stand." He wrapped his arms around his torso and hummed happily. "Mm, nachos."

 _Clip Clop._ "Seven." _Clip Clop._ "Eight."

Mikey and April turned back to the entrance of the kitchen and moved to go back to the living room. "Yeah, this is the semi-finals, right? There are so many games in the season, it's hard to keep track," April continued as they entered. Mikey opened his mouth to reply before he spotted Mira.

Who was currently hopping in place, clapping her hands loudly in front of her. _Clip Clop._ "Nine," she said, eyes on the ceiling boredly. She stopped in mid-motion for the tenth and final "jump," her father's disapproving stare freezing her to her spot even as Mikey fought the urge to laugh.

She flashed him an innocent grin. "Uh... Ten?" she tried.

"Nice try," said Mikey as April burst into a fit of giggles. " _From the top_."

"Aw, Dad!"

* * *

Author's Note: If anyone is interested, all of these kids have backstories. Mira's in particular is very cool (she is the only one of the Hamato children to be biologically related to one of the turtles) and yeah, feel free to hit me up on my tumblr if you ever have any questions. Or send me questions on here and I'll add them to this author's note. Thanks for reading! And for clarification -

Leo/Ame – Luka

Donatello/April – Damon and Daniella (Damy/Dani)

Raphael/Aniyah – Roman

Mikey/Mel – Mira


	2. Luka

Author's Note: Hey guys! Since I've had some wonderful readers message/review with questions about the kids (and also because real life is too much to handle at the moment), I've decided to write a chapter for each of the kids to give some background on them.

Don't forget – each of the kids' names start with the same first letter as their turtle father.

* * *

 _Sritch. Scratch._

Hamato Luka flipped the pencil deftly in his fingers to erase a stray line, a puff of his cheeks brushing away any of the debris before he continued. The warm summer had finally begun to fade away into autumn, which was both a relief and a disappointment for the youngest Hamato. He loved fall for the richly colored leaves, cooler temperatures and the way the sky faded into an early night.

Despite this, summer was his favorite, and not for the reason most kids hungered for the simmering hot months. Sure, Luka was out of school like everyone else, but his breaks were special. Because every year, for well over a month, he and his family packed up and traveled the great distance to small but flourishing Japanese village, situated on the very same island on which he'd been born all of twelve years ago.

His adoptive mother had been born there, too. Hamato Ame, his brilliant little mother who had a funny twitch of her nose and an armful of books so long as he could remember. She hadn't given birth to him, but who knew? Perhaps they were actually related, distantly. Many of the islanders were, after all. But she hadn't given birth to him, and neither Leonardo nor Ame had met him until he was nearly a year old.

 _Orphaned after a widespread sickness,_ they had been told by his adoptive grandfather, his mother's father and head of the village. Luka wasn't sure what he'd been called back then, nor did he have any idea what family in the village he'd come from. His birth parents had been very young, they believed, on the poorer end of the social construct of their home.

Luka had been too young, of course, to remember the day his parents came to visit the village they loved so much, the day they'd come across his story, his infant self swaddled and parentless. Luka didn't know how long they debated, if at all, or if they even took him home to New York City that day. Either way, they'd taken him in, filed the papers and given him the first and only name he'd ever known.

The warning bell trilled for lunch, but he knew he still had five minutes, so he remained where he was under the tree just outside his school's cafeteria. He was so close to being done with this sketch, and when it was complete and he was satisfied with every single mark, line and shade, he would fold it up and place it in an envelope posted for an island very, very far away.

* * *

"YAH!"

Luka dug in his bare feet against the ornate rugs below, all his weight fighting back against Mira's katana. Grinding his teeth, he sucked in a deep breath and channeled of his strength into the block. The long staff of his _kamayari_ could stand against Mira's blades, but Luka's arms were a different story.

"Plant your feet, get off the balls of your feet, Luka!"

His father's voice rang out over the various sounds in the dojo, firm and commanding. Luka winced and did as he was told, but it was no use. His sixteen year old cousin Mira wasn't much bigger than him, but she was extremely skilled, second only to Roman. With a quick twist of her arms, she whirled out of the block and caught Luka's calves with her feet, sending him sprawling onto his back with a grunt.

Huffing and pushing back some of the bushy stray curls that had escaped her braid, Mira lowered her blades and looked down at Luka sympathetically. "Sorry dude," she whispered, just before Leonardo's stoic face appeared above Luka's panting form.

"That's the third time you've been taken down today," he told Luka, standing back as Mira helped the smaller boy stand. "Where is your head at, Luka?"

Shrugging his skinny shoulders, Luka lowered his eyes and shifted his grip on the spear-like staff that was his weapon. When his father cleared his throat, Luka forced himself to look up and meet his gaze. Luka loved his father, but Leonardo was different in the dojo. Here, he was Sensei. Not Dad.

Luka bowed slowly, his body aching.

"I'll pay more attention."

* * *

"Hey," Roman called out, dropping down from the dojo steps as their cousins scattered. "You alright?"

Glancing up, Luka tried to offer his oldest cousin a casual smile, but judging by Roman's worried look, he didn't quite succeed. "I just wasn't concentrating today. I was thinking about other stuff." That drawing, namely. It was true. He hadn't been giving his full attention to anything lately.

A heavy arm looped around Luka's shoulders and Roman smiled down at him. "It's cool. Happens to me all the time." When Luka snorted in disbelief, Roman laughed. He laughed a lot, and it always made Luka's heart a little lighter when he was around. "Really!" exclaimed Roman. "I've always got my mind on fifty things."

"Then how do you always seem so aware in training?" asked Luka curiously.

Roman dropped down onto the lair's long, forever-old couch. "You've just got to – hell, what's the word? Like, divide things in your mind. Make space."

"Compartmentalize?"

"Yeah!" Roman's face lit up. "That."

Luka chuckled quietly as he took a seat. "I guess I could try that." He paused, his natural inclination to fall silent threatening to strangle him of an oppurtunity to discuss his actual feelings, an act he rarely managed. Deciding to go with the simplest explanation, he said simply, "Some things in my head are too big to store away."

Roman leaned forward and snatched up the television remote, one long leg jumping up to settle on the coffee table. Looking over at his cousin, Roman smiled. "So don't store it away. Use it." He tilted his head in Luka's direction. "You keep everything like this," he said, showing Luka a tightly closed fist. Then he gently prodded his young cousin's chest.

"Bring it out a little."

* * *

Sometimes, Luka wondered if he was resentful of his parents bringing him from Japan.

He was ethnically Japanese, and the only one of his cousins to be as such. Sure, their entire extended family practiced many Japanese cultural customs and his mother was Japanese as well. They lived much of their lives in this manner, his mother and father in particular. The three of them spoke Japanese just as commonly as they spoke English, sometimes using an amalgamation of the two languages in such a way that was almost unintelligible to outsiders.

They visited Japan every summer, and kept in constant contact with the village and Luka's grandfather, as well as his aunts, uncles and other cousins (because his mother had two younger sisters who were both married with children.)

And of course, there was Papa Splinter.

Luka adored Papa Splinter, and even the the aging rat master wasn't nearly as active as he used to be, Luka never missed the fact that his father and uncles always snapped to attention when he was near. He'd been responsible for all the education the younger kids had received before kindergarten, a job he had obviously not taken lightly, as they'd all been reading and counting long before entering a classroom. He was the calm in the storm of chaotic activity that was their family, the epicenter that kept them all grounded and firm. He wouldn't live forever, but he was still going strong for the time being, and Luka appreciated him more than he'd ever been able to express.

Still, even with the deep connection to his birth culture so thickly surrounding him, Luka never really felt at _home_ until they got to the village for the summer.

Every time he stepped off the boat and onto the island, every moment he spent scouring trails and running the village streets, he felt truly alive and present. Aware, in a way he rarely was in New York.

Yet despite all of this, he knew within a few seconds thought that he could never hold it against his parents for bringing him to the United States. For adopting him and caring for him like their own, which they did without fail. He loved his parents, and he never had any desire to call anyone else by the title. His mother was kind, funny and so dedicated. She was thoughtful and sensitive enough to catch his moods, considerate with his private nature and clever enough to make him understand why and how things are.

And then there was his father. Leonardo.

Luka loved his father. He had never considered what it would be like to have a human dad, as he considered his life to be pretty normal, and his dad was like his mother in many ways. He was nurturing without being intrusive, and he often allowed Luka to maintain his reticence without trying to poke or prod him into talking like many others had in the past. However, he _was_ insistent about one thing. And that was training.

All of his cousins trained, and to Luka's knowledge, they'd done it all their lives. Every day, in the dojo, after school or dinner, they trained and meditated and exercised. Sometimes they went out and did the same thing on the rooftops of New York, leaping from building to building in lengthy runs that ranged from mild to harrowing. What they were training for, Luka had no idea, as there had not been any threats to their family as far as he knew since before Roman had been born. But he dared not bring it up to his father or Uncle Raphael, both of whom handled their daily training with equal vigor and enthusiasm.

"Ninjutsu is not just about fighting," his father had told them all one evening. "It's about finding balance in yourself. Respecting your body. Finding harmony in the physical and mental planes that exist around you."

Personally, Luka could think of a thousand things more soothing and _harmonious_ than getting knocked to the floor a dozen times by his more skilled cousins, but he'd never once said a word against it to his dad or uncles, so there he was, day after day, growing marginally more skilled and exponentially less interested. After all, he wasn't like Roman.

Roman _lived_ for training.

And he was great at it, something which Luka couldn't help but note with a tiny bit of envy. Because even though he didn't care for training, it bothered him to see how well his cousins did in comparison. How easily they moved, how they received praise. And Roman in particular was so skilled, comparable only to Mira, who was half his size but trained just as hard with her katana. The twins were somewhere inbetween; some days, Damon and Daniella were really into training. Other days – and for some reason, these moods were always something they shared – they seemed as if they couldn't care less.

So even though Luka didn't care for training, he often worried. Worried that his father, who was so amazing at ninjutsu and who had led his own clan into battle many a time, felt sorry that he'd chosen Luka as a son. And maybe, just maybe, his father wished that Roman was his son instead.

Big, strong Roman, who never got knocked down in training and was well-liked by nearly everyone at his high school. Roman, who went on lots of dates with pretty girls and had a fantastic, close relationship with HIS dad, Luka's Uncle Raphael, as well as his mom, Auntie Aniyah (who was terrifyingly tough in her own right.) But Luka couldn't hold that against Roman, not the cousin he loved and respected, and who was occasionally silly and a complete troublemaker, but overall a great guy.

Roman, in Luka's eyes, had it all. And maybe, just maybe, Leonardo wished Luka was more like him.

But Luka would never ask him. That would be too personal. Too much to store away. And he couldn't think of a single way to use it, like Roman had said. So he didn't.

* * *

He hadn't had time to finish the drawing at school, and so he dared to complete it at night in the privacy of his bedroom. Even though the large Hamato clan spent a lot of time at the lair his father and uncles had grown up in, each of the families had their own homes. Luka, his mother and his father lived in a very nice apartment in Manhattan, financed by his mother's tenure-position teaching Botany courses at the same local university his Aunt April worked at in the laboratory.

Luka had never told either of his parents that he drew.

He'd been working for well over a year, studying books in the library at school and copying illustrations from them over and over again until he learned the intricacies of lines, shading and colors. But he'd never told them, never even so much as whispered the truth. The truth being, of course, that he adored art and drawing and he did it nearly every chance he got, always in normal composition books with lined paper, because he was too timid to ask for a real sketchbook or drawing tablet.

It was okay. She didn't mind.

Smiling at the tip of his pencil, Luka pulled his knees up further and balanced his notebook carefully, eyes working over the fine details of his sketch. It was nearly complete, just a few more things here... Done!

Moving his eyes to the top of the drawing, Luka wrote in neat Japanese.

 _For Miyamoto Kameko_

His eyes dropped back to the drawing and he leaned against his pillows, satisfied. On the paper, sketched in pencil was a young rabbit girl with a wave of dark hair, loose and settled against the collar of a kimono he had worked on for what felt like ages. She had a tiny nose and pretty dark eyes, though Luka wasn't sure one could see all of that in his drawing. Her hands were folded demurely in front of her, her long ears – shorter than her father's, but still long – sticking out of her hair in puffy tufts. In the drawing, she looked just as Luka remembered her from his last visit to Japan.

Even the background was the same as what had framed her when she'd waved good-bye. Mountains, a shining sky, scattered rocks near the shore of the water as the boat took Luka and his family on and away. Each year, Luka was more and more upset to leave her. Not that he had ever told her that, but unlike nearly everyone else he'd encountered, Luka was sure she didn't have to be told. She knew.

Unfortunately, Luka had a sneaking suspicion that their time together might be cut short next summer. Kamekos' father, Usagi-san, hadn't taken her into his own until Kameko was nearly school-age, but as Luka's father had explained to him, Usagi-san hadn't know Kameko even existed until her mother had passed away. Now, Kameko lived with him in the village, and every summer since she and Luka were five years old had been spent together in the hills, the mountains and the pools of beautiful crystal clear water. Playing games, flying kites, running in the meadows. It was more than Japan that he missed when they returned to New York.

But last summer, right after his twelfth birthday, Luka noticed Usagi-san giving him an odd look when he'd said good-bye to Kameko. Come to think of it, Kameko had been acting a little funny, too. He could have sworn she blushed when he'd hugged her, even though he had done it many times before. Luka liked Usagi-san, but he reminded him a lot of his father, and not in a good way. Usagi-san was kind and polite, but Luka had no desire to get on his bad side. He had a feeling that such a thing would be... unpleasant.

Folding up the paper carefully, Luka searched around for an envelope. He and Kameko wrote letters all year long, and he always sent a drawing to her, to which she would always reply with a letter and a new poem. It was the secret thing that was all their own.

Before he could find his envelopes, a light knock came at the door before it opened. "Luka?"

Scrambling to push his drawing out of sight, Luka nearly fell off the bed at the sight of his father standing in the doorway. "H – Hai?"

Leonardo raised a brow ridge, his hand still on the doorknob. "You... alright?"

Swallowing tightly, Luka shoved away the drawing and nodded. "Yes, I'm fine." He gestured weakly to his bed. "Just getting ready to go to sleep." When his father hesitated, Luka reluctantly met his gaze. Leonardo seemed to consider something before he stepped inside and came to sit at the edge of Luka's bed.

After a moment's pause, he spoke quietly. "I hope you didn't feel like I was targeting you at training today," he said, shifting his head in Luka's direction. "I just want you to be more careful. Part of this entire effort is to teach you focus. That's something that will help you in all aspects of your life, Luka. Not just training."

Nodding slowly, Luka placed his hands in his lap. "I understand."

"Do you?" asked his father, before a three-fingered hand came to rest on Luka's shoulder. "Or do you just want me to go away?" A touch of a smile passed between them and Luka relaxed a little.

"I – I get the idea," Luka admitted after a long pause. "I just..." He trailed off, finding himself unable to complete his thought. It was too stressful, too grinding against his personality to simply say how he felt. It was a barrier that was both a comfort and a constant source of anxiety. His father waited, allowing him to collect himself, but when Luka shifted and began to speak, he rustled his composition book.

Leonardo looked down and picked it up. "What's this?"

His eyes growing wide, Luka barely staved off the wild urge to jump up and snatch the notebook. "It's just a – a thing for –" he started to say 'school', but his dad had already let some of the pages fall out, and when he stooped to gather them, Luka felt real terror seize him.

His drawings. His dad was looking at his drawings, and oh god, why did he feel like crawling into himself? Straightening, Leonardo turned one of the papers in his hands. It was a simple picture, because nearly everything Luka drew was benign and simple. A flower. His school building. His cousins, when he was feeling adventurous, just portraits of their faces. Glancing at Luka, Leonardo carefully replaced the loose papers in the notebook and closed it.

When he took a seat next to Luka again, he offered him the notebook, which Luka took with a great deal of numbness.

"Did you draw those?" asked his dad.

Looking up fearfully, Luka pulled the notebook against his chest and nodded. Several moments of silence ticked by before Leonardo leaned his head down, placing his face in Luka's line of sight. His lips quirked in a smile.

"I didn't know you knew how to draw," he said.

Luka tucked his head further. "You never asked," he murmured.

At this, he finally looked up to see his father's face changed, and even though he couldn't name the emotions he saw there, he was relieved when Leonardo looped an arm around his shoulders. "You're right," his dad said with a light laugh. "I didn't. That's pretty selfish of me."

Luka looked up in wonder, his eyes wide. "Selfish? You?" Never.

"I lose sight of things, like everyone else," his dad said, smoothing a hand on top of his head. "But to be fair..." his smile grew again. "You're a pretty sneaky kid."

Luka's heart pounded for a few more minutes before he at last allowed himself a small laugh. His dad didn't hate his drawings? He didn't think it was strange? It so often seemed to Luka that all his dad cared about was training. But maybe he was being selfish, too. His dad had grown up in isolation. Maybe, just maybe, ninjutsu was what had kept him going all those years in solitude.

Maybe Luka sometimes lost sight of things, too.

"Well," said Luka, leaning into his dad's shoulder. "You did train me to be a ninja. Sneaky is kind of part of the deal." They both laughed, louder and more in earnest this time.

"That's true," his dad conceded. "But hey, your pictures... They're really good." At Luka's shy shrug, Leonardo squeezed his shoulder gently. "Really. How did you get so talented?"

"Mm not," Luka murmured. "Just practiced a lot."

"Maybe you've got more focus than I thought," said Leonardo, and Luka set aside his composition book before he let his head fall against his dad's shoulder. The muscled arm of his father held him at his side.

"I could always use more," said the younger Hamato with a smile. "Training and drawing aren't so different. Maybe all the effort I put into one can carry into the other, huh?"

His father gave him one more squeeze. "I don't see why not."

* * *

Author's Note: Uhm. This turned out really long.


	3. Damon

Author's Note: THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS! It means a lot that you guys take interest in these characters. Personally, I love them, and I spent a lot of time thinking about them and often laughing outloud because honestly, they're hilarious.

I start graduate school tomorrow. Also I finally finished my 2012 April O'Neil costume for DragonCon. Whoooooo. Here, enjoy another chapter composed of mostly unnecessary sound effects. Because I love them.

* * *

 _Crack._

"... and Damon Hamato sends one _flying_ over center field. Good luck catching that ball, boys!"

The announcer's voice boomed over the whiny sound system installed decades ago at the school baseball stadium, causing even the Away spectators to jump in their seats. Wearing a grin under his batting helmet, Damon dashed for first base, then second. The screams of the crowd were deafening, but nothing could drown out the sound of his family, all of whom managed to be heard over the din.

"GOOOOOOOO DAMON!" screamed Mira from the stands, and in the opposite corner of the bleachers, high above the masses and tucked into the shadows, his father and uncles yelled too.

Even his twin sister Daniella, who would cheer for absolutely no one else, clapped and jumped in the air with a click of her high heels. When his dirt-covered cleats slammed into homeplate a single hit later, Damon was immediately engulfed in enthusiastic hugs and shouts from his teammates.

That was it. They were going to the playoffs.

* * *

"Celebratory pizza!"

Damon chuckled as his Uncle Mikey clapped him on the shoulder and the two were suddenly surrounded by a cloud of red dirt. His uncle gave an exaggerated cough. "Probably should've let you change out of your uniform before we dragged you down here," he grinned.

"Nah," Damon dropped onto a stool in the lair's kitchen, where piles of pizza boxes awaited the hungry mob that was his family. "This is my good luck dirt. I'll keep it for a while."

"Oh!" His mother's slim arms wrapped around his neck, which she could only do because he was seated. He'd left his short little mom in the dust a long time ago, height-wise. "I'm so proud of you!" Pressing a kiss to his dusty cheek, April Hamato rounded the corner just as his dad appeared.

"I told you that new formula would work!" his father beamed, gaptooth prominent. "There's science in everything, right? Even baseball!"

"Orrr," Daniella appeared, a true, rare smile on her pretty freckled face. "Damon is just really awesome."

Her brother raised both brows in response. "Oh, a compliment from Dani? Alert the authorities. There are body snatchers on the loose."

The two exchanged grins before Damon turned back to his pizza, famished. Roman and Auntie Aniyah took seats across from him. "How's your ankle? You're keeping that wrap on it, right?" asked his aunt, her keen eyes on him for any hint of a lie. Damon held up his free hand.

"Every practice and game, I swear."

"Good," Auntie Aniyah nodded, satisfied.

"Stop giving the kid a hard time," broke out a voice behind him, and Damon turned, unsure of who had spoken until a man with a mop of black hair and a wide grin sauntered in.

"Casey!" Damon jumped up, letting the other man throw him into a tight hug before he ruffled his hair. "I didn't know you were coming to visit," continued Damon. He went to go take his seat again, but his sister had stolen it, so he hopped onto the bar next to her instead and munched on his pizza.

"Yeah, I gotta get down here every once in a while, make sure you guys are behaving," Casey sent a smirk at Uncle Raphael, who rolled his eyes in response and handed him a beer. "And look," Casey pointed behind him. "I even brought the trouble-maker this time."

Damon and the others looked to see a dark-skinned girl with a streak of purple in her hair standing near the doorway, arms folded. Roman was instantly at attention, and Damon shared a snicker with his sister when their older cousin practically stumbled off his seat.

"Angellll," Roman said smoothly, assuming a confident pose against the fridge. "What've you been up to?"

Eyeing Roman up and down, Angel snorted. "More than you, obviously." With that, she flicked a single finger at Roman's cheek and moved past him to the food. Damon and Daniella barely contained their laughter, tucking their heads together and heaving to not show Roman their amusement. His cousin was normally so easy with the ladies, but Casey's adopted daughter was having _none_ of it, which really only seemed to incense Roman's efforts.

"He's so baffled," whispered Dani with a snarky giggle. "I can practically hear his thoughts. He's like – ' _I don't understand. Why isn't it working? Am I still hot? Of course I'm still hot. So if I'm hot and this girl is hot, why aren't we hot together? What's happening?_ '"

Damon buried his face in his arms, unable to hide his laughter. Finally, Angel left the kitchen and Roman seemingly followed her, so the twins and their parents could eat in peace (their other family members being around the lair, but elsewhere.) Damon loved when they were all together, but he was glad for a little peace and quiet.

"So," he said, taking Roman's seat. "How's Chicago, Casey?"

The older man fell into a seat with a groan. "It's a festering shithole of crime and villainy, dude." Throwing his elbows onto the bar, he leaned forward and smirked. "I _love_ it."

"Such a role model," commented Damon's mom from the side, and his dad hmm'ed in agreement. Daniella rolled her eyes at them and twisted in her seat, crossing her legs at the knee and letting her stiletto-covered foot dangle near Casey's knee.

"I think he's very brave," she said loftily, smiling directly at Casey, and really, the look on his dad's face was nearly enough to send Damon into another fit of laughter.

The thing was, most people didn't understand his sister. Daniella was – well, she was a person who lived for flare and drama and made no apologies about it. Her hobbies included fashion design, flirting and giving their dad a heart-attack on a regular basis. She also had a scathing tongue and very little filter, making it difficult for even their other family members to spend a lot of time around her.

But, Damon knew there was more to her than that. And he was quite possibly the only person who did.

* * *

The thing was, Damon's parents were great. Donatello and April Hamato, two geniuses with all the drive and determination in the world. His mother worked at a university laboratory, doing some kind of research she'd told him about a hundred times but he'd never really processed. She worked charities, did fundraisers, helped take care of Papa Splinter and still never missed one of Damon's baseball games.

And his dad – well, his dad was a biochemist (one of his many professional titles) who worked with a guy called Dr. Rockwell, someone who – if Damon had gotten the story straight – had been a human, then a mutant monkey, and was now a human again thanks to his dad. Now, they were partners in a very well-known research lab in the city that had six floors of dedicated workers, all under the supervision of the Hamato-Rockwell duo. It was a pretty big deal... to science people.

Or something.

Either way, his parents were both brilliant and very hard workers. Which is really the only reason he and Daniella had ever been born.

Two miscarriages. Two individual heartbreaks his parents had to endure before the in vitro fertilization had finally worked, and would you look at that – they got pregnant with twins, the only ones in their family. Damon and Daniella's biological father had been an anonymous donor, so they weren't genetically related to Donatello. But honestly, that had never mattered. Their goofy dad was their goofy dad, and he'd endured enough to earn the title anyway, especially dealing with Dani.

Honestly, compared to Dani, Damon was the good kid by default.

But that didn't stop him from wondering if his parents ever looked at all the B's on his report card and thought – _what have we done? Why has the genius god forsaken us?_

* * *

Damon tangled with his t-shirt before finally wrenching it off and tossing it casually to the floor, where it joined a pile of other clothes that disguised his carpet. After picking out an equally unassuming clean t-shirt, he pulled it on and glanced at the mirror.

Tall, slim and lightly freckled, he looked a lot like his mother. His hair wasn't as red as hers – much closer to blond – but it had a red sheen to it that made his green eyes pop. He kept it as long as his coach would allow, which was only just long enough to reach his ears and stay shaggy.

Much to Daniella's chagrin, his dresswear stayed pretty much the same every day. A t-shirt, jeans or cargo shorts fit the bill. It wasn't that he didn't care how he looked, it was just – well, okay. He wasn't all that concerned about it. As long as he was (relatively) clean and everything fit, he was happy. Sometimes he wore caps, but not often unless he was playing ball. There was this one horrifying picture of him with his sister when they were about six, and he was wearing a whole vest-tie-thing, and god, it was awful and even then, he'd imagined throwing himself in front of a bus the entire time he had to wear it. His cousin Roman often wore fitted clothes, v-necks and things like that, and Luka was in a neatly pressed polo tucked into a pair of pants with a belt _every single day,_ but Damon liked music, and anything that had one of his bands on it was a win.

Then again, Roman dressed like that because he liked to impress ladies. Damon... not so much.

* * *

"Look," his sister rolled onto her stomach on his bed, her feet in the air behind her. "I'm not saying you have to tell them, because you don't. I just think you would feel a lot better if you did."

Damon let his head fall against his headboard with a thunk, a rare cloud of misery pushing in on his usual ease. "I just..." he sighed deeply. "I – I don't want them to hold it against me."

Daniella inched up the bed and poked at his leg, her blue eyes turned up to him. "Damy, think about our parents. Imagine their dorky little faces in your head. Got it?" She waved her hands. "Now try to imagine them being homophobes. It's weird, right? Yeah, that's because they're _not."_

"They don't have to be homophobes to not want a gay son," countered Damon with a frown, eyes on his hands in his lap. A hand moved over his troubled fingers and he looked up to meet his sister's gaze, comfort filling him when she squeezed gently. Despite his anxiety, his lips lifted in a smile. If people even knew half of what Daniella was really about, he thought in a moment of distraction. Not that she would _let_ them know, but that was a whole different story.

She said softly, "Damy, I'll be there with you."

* * *

So they sat at dinner that night, and Damon felt like everything was ash in his mouth.

"Oh, Donnie!" his blissfully unaware mother piped up suddenly from across the dinner table. "Did I tell you we finished that experiment recreating the dynamic allostery of protein alpha helical coiled-coils?"

Damon blinked slowly, his thoughts disrupted as his dad jumped into full attention. "You didn't! How did it go?"

And then the two launched into a full discussion about things Damon never hoped to understand, leading him to stir the vegetables around his plate languidly while sneaking looks at his sister. When she caught him looking, she raised a brow and flicked a glance at their parents pointedly. Damon knew she was prompting him to speak up, but he froze.

His mom looked up mid-sentence, as if sensing their secret conversation. "Are you guys okay?"

Daniella looked to him again, but Damon stared hard at his plate. When his parents looked between them, obviously concerned, Damon found he couldn't speak. So Daniella did instead.

"I'm on my period," she said dryly, spearing some food with her fork. "It's making us both moody."

"Ah," said their dad. "Hormonal flux. Well, that's perfectly natural -"

"I need to talk to you guys," interrupted Damon before he could stop himself. His parents paused, and his dad set down his fork and shifted in his direction with a patient stare. Damon forced his eyes up from his plate and cleared his throat. Then, because he could think of no way to lead into it, he said simply -

"I'm gay."

Silence ticked by, and what felt like an impossibly long time stretched out before him before his mother gasped. " _Really?_ I had no idea!"

"Do you have a boyfriend?" asked his dad with a smile.

April cut in with, "Can we meet him?"

"Oh! And don't forget condoms," Donatello said sagely. "They're important for more than contraception, you know! In fact, I think I have a pamphlet here somewhere..."

Horror mountaing, Damon fought to stop them from talking anymore, oh god. "No, no no!" Damon blurted out, raising his hands in a rush. "I – I'm fine, I – No, I don't have a boyfriend. I just – I just wanted..." he trailed off, an relieved laugh moving its way up his chest and into his dry, aching throat. "I just wanted you guys to know, that's all."

Next to him, Daniella smirked from her seat and winked at him. "See?" she quipped, sipping at her water.

"Thank you for telling us," his mom said sincerely, reaching across the table and clutching his hand, and Damon's chest finally lost some of the tightness from before. At his dad's reassuring smile, he managed a faint nod and squeezed his mom's hand in return.

Donatello rose from the table and rounded Damon's chair, pausing long enough to kiss the top of his head. "We love you," he told him earnestly, before he took his wife's empty plate to the kitchen.

"What about me?" Daniella cried out. "Someone love me! I'm straight!"

"That's what worries us, sweetie," said his mom with an angelic smile.

* * *

He'd sat at that dinner table an hour after everyone else was finished that night, and when he at long last stood to go to the kitchen, his shoulders were still shaking. That is, until Daniella sneaked up behind him and jumped on his back. He smiled at her over his shoulder and hooked his arms under her legs before taking off in an excited sprint until they both fell over under the weight of their own laughter.

* * *

"So," Roman said as he smashed another series of buttons on the video game controller. "Do you like any of the gay dudes at school?" His eyes remained on the screen, as did Damon's as he mulled over Roman's question. On the television, Damon's race car flashed and blew up before restarting.

"Uh," he said, turning his controller sharply. "Not really. They're kinda... flowery. Not really my type."

Roman threw a triumphant fist into the air before he turned his attention back to the controller. "Not your type?" he asked, confused. "They're gay, aren't they?"

Damon smiled patiently at the television. "Do _you_ like every straight girl you know, Rome?"

"Unh," Roman winced as his car slammed into a side rail. "Hell no." And then, after a moment's thought while the game reloaded, he nodded. "Oh, I never thought about it like that." The game resumed, fast and furious.

"You better turn down that volume," Damon nodded in the direction of the remote. "Before Papa Splinter comes in here and whoops both our asses." Roman dove for the remote and hurriedly tuned down the massive explosions on-screen.

"Okay, so what do you look for in a dude then?" asked Roman, eyes glued to the race. "I'm curious."

Damon shrugged. "I don't know. Someone who's chill... fun to be around, listens to good music. You know, the same stuff you look for in a girl. Just..." he trailed off with a grin, and now Roman was laughing.

"Go on," he prompted with an eyebrow wiggle. "Say it."

"... with a dick," finished Damon before they both collapsed into laughter.

* * *

People often said that Damon must be a happy person, because apparently he always looked jovial, but the truth of the matter was that Damon simply found amusement in nearly all things and it left him with a perpetual smirk. It was less than he was always content and more that he spent a lot of time making commentary in his head, all of which was endlessly entertaining to him.

Like now.

"Bring it on, bo-yee!" Mira twirled her katana and hopped on her bare feet. "I hope you need a haircut, 'cause I'm taking a little off the top today!"

Chuckling, Damon assumed a fighting stance, his _nunchaku_ spinning lazily in his hands before he settled one end of each under his arms against his ribs. His pint-sized cousin charged, and Damon _nearly_ didn't move out of the way in time, because Mira was hella fast, but he managed to roll away and her next swing found itself blocked. The two parried this way and that, moving across the floor under the watchful eye of Uncle Raphael.

"Stay light on your feet, Damon!" he called out. "Mira, pull your elbows in! You're gonna get knocked on your ass like that!"

Damon had to admit, Mira was really good. And some days, he just couldn't beat her, no matter how hard he tried. Of course, he had height and weight advantage, but it didn't matter. When she was really on point, he couldn't get close enough to get her down, not without getting the broad side of a blade smashed against his ribs, which he didn't fancy.

Fortunately, this bout ended in a draw. "You got lucky," Mira snickered, gripping his hand in a loose shake. Damon caught both ends of his nunchucks in hand and wiped some sweat from his brow, but before he could reply, a voice cut in.

"Hey hey, that's my girl!" Uncle Mikey swooped in and kissed Mira's cheek. "Just came by to drop off your homework, since you conveniently left it at home." Mira wrinkled her nose in response.

"Gee, thanks," she muttered, as Mikey looked around the dojo thoughtfully.

"Man, I have spent a lot of time in here... not paying attention to anything," Michelangelo said with his hands on his hips.

"Yeah," Uncle Raph grunted. "And we all paid the price for that, huh Mike?"

Uncle Mikey waved a hand. " _But did you die?_ "

"We came pretty damn close!" Raphael thwapped him in the arm, making him yelp and jump away as Damon and Mira stifled their laughter. "You oughta get in here more often, you dork. Work out a muscle that isn't your mouth."

"Dude, I'm still totally the baddest chucker ever, Raph," Mikey countered, and this time, Damon couldn't help but laugh. Just a little. At Mikey's incredulous look, he tried to recover.

"No, I didn't mean – I'm sure you're still good, Uncle Mikey," he tried.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" Mikey turned to Raphael. "This boy thinks he can out-chuck me!"

Damon's eyes widened at his Uncle Raph's mischievous grin. "Maybe you oughta' show him a thing or two, Mikey."

"Aw," Damon held up both hands. "Come on, Uncle Mikey... I mean, I... I've hardly ever seen you even train." He didn't want to hurt his uncle. "The last time you were in the dojo, you were soaking Uncle Leo's wraps in old fish paste." Which _reeked,_ as Mikey damn well knew.

"Then you shouldn't be worried about sparring a little," said his orange-banded uncle, blue eyes dancing with laughter as he pulled out his own _nunchaku_. "Riiiiiight?"

"Ooh," Mira crossed the mat and took a seat. "I am going to watch this for sure!"

Looking back to his uncle, Damon conceded with a sigh and pulled out his chucks. He couldn't think of a single time he'd seen Uncle Mikey pull them out without being prompted by Papa Splinter. This was going to be a disaster. He just had to make sure not to embarrass him too badly.

They squared on one another in the center of the mats. Or at least, Damon did. His uncle was just standing nonchalantly, twirling one of his nunchucks and whistling. _Whistling._

Confused, Damon found his stance and charged, moving with a quick roll and a one-two jab. And yet all of his effort was wasted, because all he found was air.

"What the - " he whirled in a circle to find his Uncle Mikey behind him, giggling wildly. Damon moved again, whirling to the left and striking low, then high. But each time he was met with nothing, and the green and orange blur to the his side vanished once more before popping up behind him.

Damon rolled forward and kicked up, spinning sharply and _thwack-thwack-thwack_ striking directly at Mikey, who countered each hit with an easy block, batting away each strike with his own weapons before he ducked low and rolled right around Damon.

Panicked, Damon turned in a full circle and lifted his leg in a sharp kick aimed at Mikey's shoulder.

When a _kusarigama_ chain wrapped around his ankle, his eyes widened. "Oh, shi -"

With a quick flick of his wrist, his uncle sent him flying to the ground where he landed on his front with an _oof_! Coughs turned into laughter as he rolled onto his back, only to find his uncle peering down at him with an easy smile before he lifted a hand to pull him up.

"Okay," Damon wheezed. "I withdraw my earlier comments."

"Eh, it's alright," said his uncle with a pat on the chest. "You're not the first opponent to underestimate me!"


	4. Daniella

Author's Note: Ahh, I can't believe it's taken me so long to update this! It's not a serious story or anything, but I love writing about these kids. I think about them all the time.

Anyway, thanks for reading! To answer a question from Juanita27 – Rockwell is the face of the research company he and Donnie work for (as Rockwell is now human once more). Donnie just works with him privately behind the scenes, and communicates with others via electronic devices when necessary. So he's still in hiding, but thanks to Rockwell, he has a real job. (:

* * *

One time, Daniella had joined the cheerleading squad.

It involved everything she loved – being the center of attention, short skirts, and dance. Unfortunately, it also involved working closely with eighteen other girls her age.

That hadn't worked out so well.

And so, after _The Mishap_ (which started as a scathing remark and ended with an all-out cheerleader-filled brawl), Dani had resolved to stick strictly to dancing, which was something she could without having to cooperate with others. So while her twin brother and cousins had all their hobbies, she had her dance – ballet some days, hip hop on others. In fact, one of the few things she and her cousin Mira had in common was their love of music, which made end-of-shift cleanup times at the restaurant all the easier.

"Oh, turn it up!" shouted Mira from the other side of the dining room, and Dani grinned as she leaned over to her speaker, the speedy lyrics of "Bang Bang" filling the air, and whenever the song called for singing, Dani belted out the tunes, while Mira kept perfect pace with every rap portion.

And then, of course, cleaning up afterhours involved a lot of percussion.

"Bang, bang into the room! I know you want to – bang bang!" Dani sang, bouncing around the dining room, pocket change from her earnings jingling in her apron. She and Mira slid by each other expertly, table cleaner bottles in hand, the dining room only half-lit after hours.

"Wait a minute, let me take you there!" they sang loudly, until Mira jumped straight off the ground until one of the tables and grooved side to side.

"It's Myx Moscato, it's frizz in a bottle, It's Nicki full throttle, it's oh, oh, Swimming in the grotto, we winning in the lotto," Mira mimicked perfectly, the effort of many, many hours which probably could have been put to more productive use, but weren't.

Off to the side, Aunt Mel entered, eyed the would-be concert hall/dining room, shook her head and left with a laugh.

* * *

At home in the townhouse she shared with her brother and parents, Dani lay on her back, one pedicured foot aimed toward the ceiling as she inspected it, her phone at her side, silent. Damon entered without knocking, and she didn't look away from the critical inspection of her red polish.

"Still hasn't called, huh?" he plopped down on the bed next to her.

Daniella remained stone-faced. "I'm not waiting on him to call. Screw Richie."

"No thank you," Damon said politely, reclining next to her and tilting his head. "Your feet look nice."

"My polish is chipped."

"I can't tell."

Dani turned her head in Damon's direction, and he offered her a smile, which in turn made her relax a little. She dropped her foot and sighed, her stoic expression crumpling a bit. "Why hasn't he called?"

"Either he's busy or he's an idiot."

Daniella made a face and turned to her stomach next to her brother. "Maybe I should just go out with Michael again. That'd make him pay attention." Damon moved a hand behind his head and raised both brows.

He said slowly, "Making guys jealous isn't always the way to go, Dani."

"Well, nothing else works!" she said heatedly, sitting up. "God, everyone is just so stupid! And I have so many cute outfits, and they're just wasted on morons all the time. This is New York City, it has millions of people. And I can't find a guy to go on a date with who isn't boring, lame or a horndog." She reached in her closet and began tossing out clothes, which she had in great abundance and variety. She paused in her perusal and glanced over her shoulder.

"Mira says I attract guys like that because I dress like a tramp."

"Mira shouldn't have said that," Damon said sensibly, sitting up. "And you don't dress like a tramp. You two just have different ideas about what's comfortable and what's not." Dani eyed one of her dresses with disdain, her pretty features twisted.

Different, yeah.

The thing was, there days – moments, even, that changed form from one moment to the next – where Dani felt so confident, so certain of herself, that no one could convince her she was even a shade less than perfect. She was pretty, she knew fashion, she could paint a bitchin' face. She knew how to put together outfits, how to maneuver parties. She could say five words to a guy – and only have three of them be even semi-nice – and get a date, just like that.

But it also felt like a lot of pressure, and sometimes the effort to look nice was exhausting, but god forbid she show up to school looking like Mira, who didn't seem to own a single piece of clothing that wasn't emblazoned with a sports team, or whose hair had rarely seen a brush, much less the conditioner it so badly needed, because it was seriously off the charts frizzy.

And yet Mira had tons of friends, and always seemed so comfortable in her own skin. She didn't put a lot of effort into her appearance, but no one seemed to hold it against her. She didn't dress in baggy clothes because she was self-conscious, she did that because she liked it. And it suited her personality.

For just one day, Dani wished she could get away with that.

Sure, Mira didn't get lots of dates like Dani did, but she never really tried, either. And maybe Dani, with her high-tuned women's intuition was the only one who noticed, but Roman looked at Mira really, really hard sometimes, for way longer than was acceptable by cousin standards (even if they were all adopted cousins, with no DNA shared between them).

Dani didn't care enough to mention it to anyone, and she wouldn't have messed with Roman like that anyway, because despite ample evidence to the contrary, she had a heart. But still, it was just proof that even though Mira did absolutely nothing to attract guys, she had the ability just by her natural charms and graces, something Dani felt she herself was sincerely lacking.

Oh, well. Dani picked out a new outfit to wear on her next date. At least she had her dancing.

* * *

Dani liked her parents, but what she liked even more was giving them a hard time. Especially her dad, who had this crazy habit of obsessing over everything, from Dani's too-short shorts to the makeup she'd been expertly applying since fifth grade, even if she had to wait until she got to school to do it, because her parents insisted she was too young.

Once, she'd gotten caught smoking at school – she'd only done it once, honest, and it was mostly to shotgun it with Adam Jakobson, who was the hottest guy in eighth grade at the time. And her dad – the dear scientist/chemist/engineer/inventor/medical doctor/local genius Donatello – had spent the next _three months_ grilling her on the ill effects of smoking, complete with pop quizzes and overly detailed illustrations using real lungs. Gross.

Her mom was a bit more laissez-faire about most things, leaving a great deal of the worrying and top-tier level freakouts to their dad, but she could light into them every one in a while, and it was weird, because one second she'd be the sweet, freckle-faced April, and then two seconds later, it was a literal hellmouth surrounding them and her mother was Satan incarnate.

* * *

"Dani and Damy!"

The twins snapped to attention as Raphael approached, and Dani tried to look interested, she really did, but she was cramping something fierce, and her Uncle Raph was a hardass. She'd been in the middle of whispering something to her brother when he'd called on them.

"Since you two are so damn chatty today, you can team up against the other three," said the bulky turtle, pointing to Roman, Mira and Luka, all of whom stood with their weapons ready. The twins glanced at each other, silently agreeing between them that this would not be fun.

Scowling – and earning a dirty look from her uncle – Dani reached to the straps high on her thighs, where she kept her tessen folded and hidden. All of the kids kept their weapons on them at all times, one more quirk in their peculiar-but-not-so-strange lives. Her dad, Donnie, had modified all the weapons for optimal concealment. Dani's black tessen, passed down from her mother, hid easily enough beneath her clothes, and Damon kept his in a similar strap that sat around his waist, below the hem of his pants, like a belt.

In unison, they pulled out their weapons and crouched, and when Uncle Raph called out the signal, the five teens launched at each other.

Dani swung low and went for Mira first, swatting away the katana with a loud clang and twirling deftly, knowing she had more poise and better balance than her shorter cousin, who relied much more on speed and hand skills than anything. A jab, a hit, and one particularly painful knock to the shoulder sent Dani to the dojo floor, but she rolled back up and spun into a full kick, which managed to catch Mira just long enough for Dani to turn and catch the tail of Luka's staff as it swung down on her. She fended him off for a minute, but Damon was battling Roman just behind them, nunchucks to his cousin's chigiriki, and she knew it was only a matter of time before Roman beat him.

Sure enough, Damon went down with a yelp just as Luka and Mira both rounded on Dani again, and within seconds, Luka had cut down low enough to knock her off balance and Roman sent her to the floor with much less power than he could've.

Dani toppled over and landed right on top of Damon with a groan.

"Ahaha," Mira snickered as the others relaxed, but her amusement was cut short by Dani jumping up and launching at her, which ended in an all-out grappling that continued even as the others simply watched with vague interest.

"You are such a brat!"

"Stupid tart!"

"Not my fault if your hormones are making you even crazier than usual!"

"You suck!"

Raphael looked to the others and spoke over the shouting match between the pair of girls still rolling around on the floor. "Anyone else ready for dinner?"

"Yes!" the boys chimed in unison, before turning and leaving the dojo.

* * *

Dani stared at her phone again. It was a weekend evening, and normally, she'd be out with some of the people she hung out with at school, or on a date. But not this weekend. She studied the screen with teary eyes, hot and burning tears that made her itchy and angry. "Stupid boys," she hissed at the phone, tossing it down roughly and stomping downstairs, even as her sniffles evolved into full-blown tears. "I hate them, I hate them!"

She began to cry in earnest, and she stopped in the living room, whimpering and feeling very sorry for herself, because she tried being nice sometimes, but it never seemed to suit her, and always ended with boys dating her for a few weeks and then dumping her. A sound outside drew her attention, and she spotted her parents, sitting peacefully on the carefully fencing in back patio to their townhouse. They often sat out there together, with the cushioned bench and the patio swing, drinking tea and enjoying the moonlight.

"Dani?" Damon's voice sounded behind her, and he frowned at her tears. When he followed her gaze to their parents, he touched her arm and then pulled away to pick his guitar up from where it lay against the wall.

Moments later, they stepped out onto the patio with their parents, who looked up in surprise. "Mind if we join you?" asked Damon, and Donnie and April both smiled as their teens joined them. Damon sat on a seat next to his mom, guitar in his lap as Dani crossed the patio in a teary hurry and dropped down directly into Donatello's lap, where he immediately drew her close and pet her head as she whimpered.

"My special Dani," he crooned softly, smiling and secretly enjoying her childishness sometimes, even though he'd never want her to be sad. Sometimes it took this kind of misery for her to curl up with him like she used to when she was little, angry, red little face pressed against his plastron, because someone at school had stolen her Lisa Frank pencil or something like that. "You are so strong and smart, just like your mother," he told her, stroking her hair and holding her close.

Damon strummed on the guitar, and looked across the small patio space to his sister. "Black bird singin' in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly," he sang in a soft, pleasant voice, fingers dancing over the guitar strings, "You were only waiting for this moment to be free."

Sobs falling quiet, Dani relaxed in her father's lap, her eyes falling closed as she listened to her brother sing.

"Black bird fly, black bird fly, into the light of a dark, black night… cause all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise."

* * *

Author's Note: Both songs mentioned are, of course, not mine and belong to the Nicki Minaj and Co. and The Beatles, respectively.


	5. Mira

Author's Note: The reviews for this make me SO HAPPY! To know that anyone is as interested in these characters as I am is truly heartwarming. I really have a whole story's worth of headcanon on them. Perhaps I will write it. I don't have any other new stories planned. Though, I am working on a revision of my X-Men Kietro story. I will continue to work on that.

Here, have some Mira Hamato.

* * *

The front door of the restaurant burst open, and Mira stormed out with a bounce of her frizzy brunette head. Daniella paused, one hand raised to open the door from the outside, but she simply dropped it at the appearance of her cousin.

Mira's face was flushed red, her blue eyes flashing with irritation, her round face twisted in a snarl.

Dani grinned. "Caught your mom and dad doin' it on the counter again, didn't you?"

"Like, dude!" exploded Mira. "If I had a dime for every time I saw them naked, I wouldn't even HAVE to wait tables anymore!"

* * *

Most of Mira's life had revolved around a few key things. The noodle restaurant, which she and her parents lived above in a well-kept apartment, school and the dojo. Well, okay. She also had a few other things going on. Like family, of course. And sports – Ooh, boy. She'd tried just about everything, and there was something about the competition – the _edge, the fight._ She loved it. But so far, softball and hockey had edged out as her favorites.

The school had disallowed her from playing on the school hockey team – despite many loud, argumentative efforts from Mira's various family members – so she'd joined a community team instead. Fortunately, the school council had seen no problem with her joining their lady softball team, so she was free to regularly _own_ every other team in the area on the field.

But even better than that (although no one at school would believe she loved anything more) was the dojo.

"Keep your arms higher!"

"Elbows tight!"

"That's not how you fight an opponent who's bigger than you, Mira!" snapped Uncle Leo, and Mira scowled, teeth gritted as she dug in her heels against Damon's nunchuck chains, which pressed against the blade of her katana.

"Everyone is bigger than me!" she grunted, before shifting just to the left, twirling her body and, with one solid kick, she knocked Damon off balance and hooked his nunchucks, effectively disarming him in one fluid motion. Then she kicked him for good measure, even though the exercise was only in disarming, because he'd landed a good one in her gut earlier and Mira just might have a problem holding grudges.

Only in the dojo, though. This was _her_ place.

"Unf – ow," he groaned, rolling over. "I give up, I give up!"

"Mira," Uncle Leo warned, and Mira lowered her weapons with a laugh before she freed up a hand to help Damon off the ground. He smirked at her in return. "Don't take hits so personally," Sensei continued, walking a slow circle around Mira. "You are a great fighter, Mira. And I know that's why you always get angry when you take a hit."

Mira shifted, trying to work a kink out of her shoulders as she caught her breath. She shrugged nonchalantly, but Sensei was right. She didn't like to lose. It could make her a little – aggressive.

"Yeah, midget," Roman snickered from his corner of the mat, where he twirled his weapons. "Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure if you keep working, you might be the greatest leprechaun ninja there ever was."

Mira leveled him with a slack-jawed glare, her teeth grinding before Sensei nudged her firmly. "Focus, Mira. Katas, now." Mira made a face and moved off the center of the mat, but she thwapped Roman on the arm with the broad side of her katana.

"I'm gonna shishkebob you up, boy."

"Oh," Roman lifted both brows and grinned. "I would love to see that. Especially since you've been talking about it for so long. Like our entire lives, actually."

"Man, I'm savin' up the pain," she said, fighting a snarky grin of her own as she looked straight up to Roman, who towered over her. "It's going down, dude. You're gonna be all – Oooh, no, Mira was so right! I am so lame, and I wear dumb shirts with way too low v-necks to show off the fact that I'm still waiting on chest hair – Oof!"

Mira and Roman fell to the floor and rolled around with shouts and grunts, while Leo scoffed from the other side of the room.

"ROMAN! YOU ARE TOO BIG TO – " _Crash_. And down went the weapons rack. Leo covered his face with a hand before turning away, solemnly ignoring the sounds of fighting from the other side of the room, and instead pouring himself a fresh cup of tea.

* * *

When Mira was five, she spent one evening on the steps of the lair's sitting room, crying until her little body shook.

"Mira?" a little boy peered down at his cousin, a frown creasing his features. When she hurriedly tried to wipe away her tears, he sat down next to her and tilted his head. "What's wrong?"

With a face that was red and puffy, young Mira looked to her older cousin with a deep, aggrieved inhale. "S – Sensei says I – I can't learn the katana, 'cause I'm too little!" she sobbed, as stricken with grief as a child who'd lost its pet. "I'm always too little! Always, always!" She stomped her foot. "It's not fair, Rome! It's not!"

"Well," said Roman sensibly, "I don't think you're too small for katana."

"Doesn't matter," Mira sniffed. "Sensei says even the _bokken_ are too heavy for me. He wants me to try the tessen, but I don't want those. I'm supposed to have the katana, Roman! I know it!"

"How do you know it?"

Mira swallowed and scooted close, her round face imploring. "I just do," she whispered. "They're my fa – favorite things ever. I'll – I'll do good by them. I know I will."

Roman put his chin in his hand and thought, untied sneakers twisting this way and that. After a few minutes of furious thought, his face lit up. "I've got an idea!"

So from that day on, Roman, Mira and the four year old twins trained in the dojo, mostly doing katas while Roman, as the eldest, went through exercises to find his ideal weapon. But after the dojo was empty and the room was dark, Roman and Mira would sneak in and find the wooden practice swords, and Roman would teach Mira everything he had learned that day from Uncle Leo and his dad.

After nearly six months – which was nearly a life time to a five-year-old – Mira and Roman finally entered the last stage of their elaborate plan. When Uncle Leo and Uncle Raph came into the dojo early, they were surprised to find Roman and Mira already there, standing stiffly in the center of the mat.

"What's goin' on?" asked Raph.

Mira paused, her confidence wavering, but Roman reached over and took her hand with a smile. "It's okay," he whispered. Mira smiled a little and looked back at her two sensei.

"I – I want to use the katana," she said bravely, trying to sound firm and adultlike. When her uncles exchanged glances, Mira and Roman moved to take fighting positions, bokken in hand. Uncle Leo moved to stop them, but Uncle Raph held up a hand.

"Let 'em go for it," he said quietly. Mira felt a swell of gratitude for him then, even though he and Uncle Leo looked pretty dubious about the whole thing. She picked up her bokken, took her stance, and squared off with Roman, who was already bigger and stronger than her.

"Remember," she whispered. "Fight me for real. I want them to – to see me fight."

"Got it," he said, before he gave the signal and they launched into their fight. _Bang! Thud! Scrape!_ Roman had promised Mira he would put everything into the fight, because she wanted it to be real, and he did, pushing with every motion he'd learned in the last year. But Mira – she moved so differently from him, even though he had taught her. She was lower to the ground, her arms were faster, and she fought with the wooden bokken like she could talk to them.

In the end, Roman fell to the dojo floor with a shriek and a bokken pointed at his head.

Mira smiled breathlessly, delight dancing over her features as she turned to face her teachers and then quickly schooled her expression into a more serious one, like a real warrior. She bowed to them and nervously held out the bokken for them to take.

Uncle and Leo and Uncle Raph looked to one another for a long moment, before Uncle Raph finally laughed and Uncle Leo looked to her with a smirk.

"Keep them," he said.

* * *

At the age of sixteen, Mira wasn't much taller than her twelve year old cousin, Luka, but she packed a punch and knew how to use what she had. Wiping the sweat from her brow, Mira laughed as the final buzzer went off, and the scoreboard proudly declared her hockey team's sweeping victory over those losers from Jackson County Prep.

"Whoo! That's my girl!" shouted her mom from the stands, spilling popcorn all over the man behind her. Mira tucked her helmet against her side, thick with padding and her oversized jersey, but as she looked up over the cheering stands and spotted some other members of her family – the twins, Dani and Damy, who cheered for her also. Her Auntie Aniyah, who was seriously the best about attending her games – and then Roman.

And some girl.

Something twitched in Mira's chest, and it remained the rest of the evening, smarting so irritatingly against her victory that she almost wished the game hadn't even happened. In the small bedroom that was hers, just to the left of the apartment living room above their restaurant, Mira tugged off her smelly pads, her damp socks and finally her jersey. When she stood in front of the mirror to observe herself, she frowned.

It was true, she didn't put much time or thought into her appearance. She was most comfortable in anything oversized, which wasn't hard, considering her tiny stature. Not only was it just more comfy, but it made it easier to hide her weapons. All of their weapons were kept on them at all times, but Mira kept hers on a chest strap that wrapped around her torso like a sling. Uncle Donnie had modified her katana to keep them sheathed in short, six-inch long straps on her back until she pulled them out, where they would instantly jump out to full-length. And while all of that was created for optimal concealment, it was just easier in baggy clothes.

Not to mention the whole tail thing.

Being the only actual mutant hybrid in her family was a curious thing. Her parents – who, as mentioned previously, cannot keep their hands off each other – had been the only mutant/human pairing to conceive a child naturally, which her Aunt April had told her caused a huge uproar when it happened. Something about Uncle Leo yelling at them for hours about being irresponsible and Uncle Donnie lecturing the entire group for months and months on end about the dangerous of cross-species pregnancies.

But in the end, Mira had been born healthy, if not a little small, and she'd looked, to their great surprise, mostly human. Except for the three-toed feet, which she'd always really liked, and the little tail just at the base of her spine. Her Uncle Donnie had told her once he could surgically remove it, but she'd staunchly refused. No one was seeing that part of her anyway. She wasn't worried about discovery. And even if she was – so what? Let someone say something. She'd hook them in a heartbeat.

If only she could be so confident about everything else, she thought blandly, squinting in the mirror at her unruly curls and her puffy cheeks. She didn't think she was hideous, really. She looked a lot like her mom, and her mom was a total cutie. But Mira didn't really want to be cute, she wanted to be fierce.

Like Nicki.

Turning to her personal bathroom, Mira reached over to her music player and switched on her favorite station. When Nicki Minaj began to play, Mira smiled and jumped into the shower, instantly feeling more alert and joyful. Her musical idol was everything Mira wanted to be – hard and sexy, all at the same time. She was self-assured, pretty, fashionable, talented and best of all, totally _hard_ , not some ditzy bratty pop princess. Nicki was sharp. And even if she wore an oversized hockey jersey like Mira, she'd still rock it, because that's just how she was.

Mira wanted to be like that, but she wasn't really sure how, and she was too embarrassed to try. She didn't want to admit she'd like to dress up sometimes. If she did, everyone would just make fun of her. Even her family expected her to be a baseball cap wearing tomboy her whole life, and so – well, she guessed she would.

Sometimes, Mira even wished she was like Dani. Dani always looked on point. And she wasn't even nice to guys – like, at all – but they still went out with her. She just had an air about her that attracted them. Just like that girl with Roman, back at the hockey match, Mira thought in the shower. She was some girl like Dani – tall, pretty, with expertly applied makeup and the right kind of giggle for boys to pay her all the attention.

Mira scoffed at those kind of girls, and most of the time, she meant it when she said she had no desire to be like them. But sometimes, when she was alone, she wondered if maybe that was just because she was too scared of trying and looking stupid.

She got out of the shower a few minutes later, raked back her crazy hair from her face and then slapped her backwards cap on. With a shrug, she went back to her room. This was the Mira she was, and that was okay.

* * *

"He shoots – he scores! Ahh, the crowd goes wild for the green guy!"

Mira jumped up high and snatched the basketball out of the air, turning swiftly and shooting for three. Swish. "And Mira takes the lead!" she called out in her best sportscaster voice. "RAAAAAAAAAH!"

Mikey groaned and bounced away from the net they'd placed on the back of their restaurant, in the spot where the loading truck came on Thursdays. "And who would have expected such a solid hit? Oooh, the shame! Oooh, the misery!"

"Maybe next year, young man," Mira patted him on the shoulder just as her mother came through the loading/basketball area, filing through mail in her hand.

"Mikey, did we pay the – "

"Yep."

"What about this? What is this?"

Mikey tossed up the ball and it bounced off the backboard, but he picked it up and dribbled it around Mel, who squinted at the text on the envelope. Swish. Mikey scored again before peering over her shoulder. "That's the new catering menu for next week, love."

"We already ordered this?" she asked incredulously.

"Uh-huh," he tossed the ball to Mira, who went up for a lay-up and got it.

"Dude," said Mel. "We have a lot of mail."

"That's because we're grown-ups."

"Whaaat," Mira dribbled around Mikey, who made a valiant effort to cut her off. "I don't know about that. You might want to go to the doctor and get checked up on." She shot for three but Mikey batted it down, and Mira shouted and waved her arms. "Come on, goal tending!"

"Was not!"

"Was so!"

"Oh my god," Mel said loudly, causing the other two to stop and stare. She looked up at Mikey. "The envelopes have dates on the stamps. Wow. I cannot believe I never noticed that."

Mikey grinned and kissed her cheek. "I love you," he said sweetly.

* * *

To say that Mira and Dani didn't get along was quite the understatement.

They fought like hellcats, really, and it had been that way for as long as either of them could remember. The twins were really less than a year younger than Mira, but they were all in the same grade. Still, their teachers and parents had quickly learned not to put Dani and Mira in the same class.

They saw enough of each other at the lair, and then they both waited tables at the restaurant, so even though they hardly got along, they were together pretty often. Which meant that sometimes, by a sheer fluke, they actually had a few moments of peace and companionship.

"Dani," Mira wiped her last table clean with a slow circle of the rag. "If I wanted to – I don't know, like… kinda – well," she twitched a little and didn't look in her cousin's direction. "If I wanted to like, dress up or something… Would you help me?"

Dani paused, spray bottle in hand, one perfectly tweezed eyebrow arched in disbelief. "You mean like, for a party?"

Mira shrugged, appearing for all intents and purposes as nonchalant as possible. "I mean, yeah, something like that. I guess."

Dani was at her side in an instant. "Are you asking me for a makeover?" she squealed, and Mira winced, suddenly regretting her request as she edged away.

"No, no! Nothing permanent, just like – an outfit. Maybe some hair pointers or something."

"I have been waiting for this day!" Dani declared loudly to the empty dining room, "for my whole life! Finally, it has arrived! The day Mira lets me brush her hair!"

"Good luck," said the shorter one grimly. "I have a whole graveyard of broken hairbrushes lost to the same noble cause." Dani leaned a hip against Mira' table and gestured to herself grandly.

"Mira, I am Daniella Hamato, the expert in all things beautiful and in fashion. I can make your hair reasonable."

Mira scoffed, suddenly feeling deflated by Dani's obvious enthusiasm. "I dunno, maybe I shouldn't. I mean, I'm – I'm pretty cool already, you know. I don't need a bunch of makeup and hairspray." Dani's expression softened in a way it rarely did, and she paused before speaking, another equally rare occurrence.

"Mira, I know I never tell you this, because it's really not my style – but you _are_ pretty, just so you know." She folded her arms. "Even though you seem to try SO hard not to be." Mira's heart jumped a little.

"Really?" she asked, surprised. Dani didn't say things she didn't mean. Her filter was – well, nonexistent.

Dani observed her from head to toe. "Yeah, I mean you've got a great base to work with, you know. Sure, your hair is a total wreck and nothing you wear looks like it was even made for a human shaped person, but you've got what it takes. Beneath this very, very unpolished exterior." She smiled, and Mira conceded internally that such a backwards compliment was about as good as she was going to get.

* * *

"Dad," Mira rounded the counter in the lair's kitchen, where her dad stood with her Uncle Donnie. "I've come to an important decision."

"What's that, baby?" he asked, glancing up from his accounting book for only a moment. Mira placed hands flat on the counter in a gesture of solemnity.

"I," she paused for dramatic effect, "... have decided I want to have dreadlocks." Mikey paused, pencil in hand as he looked over the finances for the restaurant, before he looked up at her and smiled.

"Sounds good. Have fun with that."

Mira nodded firmly, her grin turned up at the opposite wall as she thought joyfully on her newest decision. "Great! So," she hesitated. "How do I make dreadlocks?"

Mikey tapped his chin with the end of his pencil. "You're talkin' to the wrong bald turtle, baby. Ask your mom, her hair looks kinda like dreadlocks sometimes." Mira slapped a hand on the kitchen counter, making her Uncle Donnie jump before she pointed a finger at her dad.

"That is an excellent suggestion!" And with that she walked away.


	6. Roman

Author's Note: Aaaannddd here's the leader in red. (: Thank you to everyone who has read/reviewed/favorited! I love writing these families so much, and to know that even one other person is enjoying it as much as I am is such a great thought.

 **NOTE: This chapter contains (one instance) of offensive/racist language**. Please view it within the context of the story. It is not something I used lightly, nor is it a term I approve of. It is only used as an example of the type of issues faced by the protagonists. Thank you.

* * *

"Daddy?"

"Hm?"

"What're we eating for dinner?"

"Well," Raphael paused to grunt as the little boy climbed merrily on top of the couch, where his dad lay reclined on his shell, and promptly sat down on his plastron with a gleeful giggle. Raphael readjusted him with a smirk so he wasn't digging his sock-covered feet into Raphael's armpits before he relaxed into the cushions again. "Since your mom is gonna be workin' late, I figured we could make pizza bagels."

"Yay!" the little boy cheered, clapping his hands. He leaned over, his little body sitting comfortably atop his dad's chest, his chin in his hand and his other drumming lightly on Raphael's plastron. "Daddy?" he asked again, and Raphael 'hmm'ed' patiently.

"Am I black?"

Raphael paused, surprised. Then he shifted a little and said, "Uh, you're half-black."

"And half-turtle?"

Raphael cracked a grin. "Nah, you're all human. Sorry, kid." Roman scrunched his face in displeasure, but he didn't respond, only continuing his thoughtful drumming of his fingers. Raphael's grin faded away before he asked casually, "Why ya askin'?"

Little Roman sighed. "A boy at school asked me," he said wearily, his eyes on Raphael's front. "And I said – Uhhn-uh." He shrugged, large brown eyes turning up to Raphael's face. "And then Mama came and picked me up, and Matt – he's the boy – he said I don't look like my mama, and he said that's weird, cause he looks just like his mama and daddy."

Raphael's eye twitched, and he realized that even though he'd never had the inclination to punch a kindergartner, he just might today. Roman's little features looked so sad, and Raphael shifted the little boy up a bit, bouncing him in the process and gaining a small smile in reward.

"Hey," Raphael said pointedly, tipping up Roman's face. "First of all, you look a lot like your mom, alright? I mean, you got her eyes, her ears..." he tickled Roman's ears, making the little boy giggled, and he smiled with him. "And you definitely got her smile, seriously, it's identical." Roman shyly tucked his face into his shoulder, trying to hide his smile. Raphael lightly chucked him in the shoulder.

"And second of all, that little Matt kid was wrong. Not everyone looks like their mama and daddy, and there's nothin' weird about it, alright?" Raphael brought his much larger green hands around Roman's and squeezed them gently. "I mean, think about Papa Splinter. Do I look like Papa Splinter?"

Roman laughed outright this time, and Raphael went on enthusiastically, "I mean, he's got a big long tail, and he's brown and furry. Do I look like him?" Roman laughed and shook his head furiously as Raphael chuckled. "No, not at all, right?" He grinned and pulled Roman closer, and the little boy settled his cheek against his plastron. "But he's still my dad, isn't he?" Raphael went on gently, petting Roman's head.

Roman nodded against his plastron, and Raphael paused to squeeze him in a hug.

"And I'm still yours," he murmured. "There's lots of different kinds of families, Rome. And as long as they all love and take care of each other, there's nothin' wrong with them. You understand?" Roman nodded again before reaching up his arms and curling them around Raphael's neck.

"Mmhm," he murmured, his little body relaxing, content. He fell silent for a few minutes before piping up suddenly, "I wish I was green, though."

Raphael let out a bark of laughter. "Really? Why?"

"Because you're green!" Roman said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Raphael snickered, before his eyes caught Roman's kiddie-sized craft table in the corner of the room. He looked back to the little boy with a devious smirk.

"Welllll," Raphael said. "If you insist."

Which was how, an hour later, Aniyah came through the front door of their apartment after a long shift, only to see head-to-toe _green_ version of her son rush by, a pillow strapped firmly to his back in place of a shell, his shout positively hysterical with glee.

"I LOVE BEING A TURTLE!"

* * *

"Roman."

The seventeen year old looked up and straightened to his full height, which left him towering over his Uncle Leo. Or, as he was known in the dojo, Sensei.

"I want you to lead today," his uncle said, and Roman's face lit up. Fighting to look more serious than excited, he bowed to his sensei and hurried into the dojo, where his cousins stood stretching with varying degrees of enthusiasm. "Alright, guys. I'm leading training today – "

His cousins all groaned in unison, with the exception of Mira, who whooped excitedly. Roman scowled. "What?" he exclaimed incredulously, to which Damon squinted in his direction.

"No offense, but I don't know if I can – um, keep up with your…" he exchanged a look with his twin. "… enthusiasm today."

"Why not?" asked Roman, large arms folded.

"I … got beat up in baseball practice pretty bad?" Damon tried, before Dani raised her hand with a huff. Without being 'called on', she said loudly –

"I need to be excused."

"Why?" Roman asked flatly, already exasperated.

"Because I have an issue I need to take of," she said.

"Well, you should have taken care of it before coming to training!"

"I am about to bleed all over myself!" shrieked Dani, and everyone else in the dojo cringed, Luka in particular looking quite mortified. Roman slapped a hand over his face before waving her away, and she stomped off, leaving Mira as the only one still standing with her weapons.

"Come on, you guys are being lame," she exclaimed, bushy hair tied with great effort into a braid on the side of her head. "I like when Roman leads! Because I can say – LET'S KICK SOME ASS!"

"That's the spirit!" Roman grinned and slapped her a high five, and together they turned to face Damon and Luka, both of whom looked to each other with equally deadpanning expressions.

"I'm going to be so sore tomorrow," muttered Damon.

* * *

Mira was always there to back him up. She and the twins were pretty close in age, but she was half a year older, and at the age of sixteen, she was probably Roman's closest friend. They'd been a pair their entire lives. In training. At home. Everywhere.

Uncle Leo and his dad, Raphael, who handled the training in turns had spent the last few years giving Roman more and more responsibilities. They didn't name him leader just because he was the oldest, or strongest, or hardest worker in the dojo. They said it was because it was his natural instinct to lead, to protect his loved ones, and to make split-second reactions based on the preservation of the clan. That was the kind of things a leader needed to do.

But his cousins didn't really get that. They thought that since not a lot had gone on since they were born, they wasn't much of a reason for them to take training seriously. But Roman did.

"Eugh," Roman fell onto his back against the dojo carpet. Today's training had been disastrous. When Uncle Leo or his Dad led the training, everyone pretty much fell into line, with only sparse mumbling. With him? Not so much.

"What're you all huffy about, dummy?" Mira plopped down onto his stomach, causing him to grunt in pain as she inspected her toes, with no consideration given to her weight on his ribs. He didn't move her, instead flopping his tired limbs back to the floor.

"No one listens to me," he mumbled.

"Eh," Mira picked at some fuzz on her pinky toe. "That's just part of what you gotta figure out, I think. How to inspire loyalty. Have you ever seen that movie _Glory?_ Watch that. Those dudes were legit."

"I have seen that movie, and I don't really think it applies," he said dryly, staring up at the ceiling with a frown. After a moment, Mira's curly head appeared in front of his vision, and before he knew it, she had rolled off him and snatched both of his arms, which she pinned to the ground.

"Ooh, fastest takedown in MMA history! Roman "Colossus" Hamato dies of shame! Whooooo!"

Roman rolled his eyes at her. "I am not playing with you, Mira! I'm trying to think!"

"This just in," Mira continued in her announcer voice, bearing down on him with all her weight. "Roman Hamato, one a great champion, to be buried in a coffin made of seawater and algae, because he was secretly twelve jellyfish in a trenchcoat and not a real ninja! Ooh, the shaaaaaaaaame!"

"Mira!"

"In the aftermath of Hamato's death, Spongebob Squarepants releases lewd images of a wild houseparty in which Roman "Twelve Jellyfish" Hamato – Argh!"

Mira tumbled down onto the dojo rugs with a loud squeal of laughter as Roman grappled her into a hold, but she managed to squirm out, and the two engaged in a furious wrestling match until they were both out of breath and raspy with laughter. They fell side by side on their backs against the floor.

Roman looked over at Mira, who glanced at him and smiled. She sucked in a deep breath before saying, "You're a good leader, Roman. I promise."

"Really?" he asked, uncertain. At her nod, though, he felt his heart lift and he smiled back, eyes turning to the ceiling once more.

* * *

Roman simply could not understand the lack of enthusiasm his cousins had for training. They were _ninjas_ for crying out loud. They were trained to do the kinds of things actors needed stunt doubles for, except they could really do it, and okay, sure, there hadn't been any kind of real threat to the family since before he was born, but who knows?

 _There might be someone out there._

Besides, what was there not to like? They all had great balance, kickass reflexes, and in Roman's case, he was able to channel everything he'd learned from training into a confident personality and – let's face it – a killer body. Which, ya know, was always a plus, particularly as he sailed through his senior year of highschool. He never really tried for any kind of serious relationship, in part because it was just too dangerous to get involved in a fling when someone could potentially discover the secrets harbored by his family. But also because, hey, why limit things? He was a young, happy guy who loved his life, and also who had no real desire to tie himself down to one girl. So he dated, partied, and did his thing.

Honestly, he was pretty well-liked at school. That didn't mean he was without a few enemies, though. The truth was, Roman _liked_ fighting. In fact, almost all of the rules set by their parents about not engaging in combat outside the dojo had been put in place entirely because of Roman, who didn't mind starting a fight with someone he felt deserved it, even knowing how much of an advantage he had.

Roman had even been arrested twice, though of course, his cousins were always along for the ride.

* * *

"Man, I love this stuff," Mira looped a piece of sour ribbon candy into her mouth, before twisting her face as she swallowed it all in one gulp. Luka laughed from where he sat next to her, on top of a picnic table in Central Park.

"I can eat more than you at once," he teased, and Roman looked up from where he stood off to the side, fooling with his music player.

"Ooh, a challenge! Better not back down, Mira."

"I'm game!" she exclaimed, turning to face Luka with a handful of candy, and Roman came to stand next to them, dark eyes alert.

"I'm the official judge. No cheating. No gagging. You throw up, you lose."

"Duh, I know how to do a sour candy contest," Mira adjusted her backwards cap with a cocky grin and Roman raised a hand to wave it like a starter flag. Unfortunately, their candy competition was halted by the loud snort. The three looked up to see two guys from Roman's class standing nearby, one tossing a basketball from hand to hand.

"Jesus Christ, you guys are lame," one said. Roman's smile dropped away as he straightened. Mira bit off a piece of her candy aggressively as she leaned back on her table, eyes on the pair of intruders.

"Ignore them," Roman said loudly, turning away from the pair. "They're just some losers from my history class."

"So, Roman, are we actually supposed to believe you guys are related?" one of them asked with a sneer, as he leaned against a different picnic table. "You look like a bunch of foster kids."

"Oh," said the other, snapping his fingers. "I get it. They're Angelina Jolie's kids!" Both of the guys laughed hysterically, and Roman rolled his eyes. They'd heard this kind of crap before. Still, he wanted to pound them, but Mira reached forward first and touched his hand. With a quick glance to her face, he nodded and reached over to grasp Luka's shoulder. He guided his youngest cousin off the picnic table, and Mira jumped down as well.

"Let's get out of here before these two begin a serious circlejerk," Mira grunted, and the three of them turned away. Even so, the two boys continued.

"Hey," said one of them. "Isn't their last name Chinese or something?"

Roman held Luka protectively in front of him, and he tried not to hear their words, he really did.

"Oh, yeah," the first one said with a loud laugh. "That's right! And you know what that tells us, don't you?"

"What?"

"Which one of his parents was the coon lover."

Roman stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide, and Mira and Luka paused next to him in a silent fit of terror. "Roman," Luka said, reaching up to grab his arm, but Roman had already whirled to face the two boys, who stood in willful ignorance of their wrongdoings.

Their laughter was short-lived. It took a passing cop to finally pull Roman away.

* * *

The car ride home from the police station was silent and heavy.

Aniyah Hamato gripped the steering wheel with devastating force, her eyes glassy and unnaturally focused on the road. After several minutes of silence, she could hold her peace no longer.

"One month, Roman!" she exclaimed, jarring everyone in the car except Roman, who sat in the passenger seat with a flat expression pressed against the car window, eyes dark and blank. "One more month, and you'll be eighteen! That means no more juvie! The next time you get into it with police, the next time you start some damn fight, you're going to jail! Do you understand?"

Roman blinked apathetically at the window as Aniyah pressed back a sob, her shaking hand coming to smooth back a piece of curly hair from her face.

"And why won't you tell me what happened, baby? Why did you attack those boys? Why?"

Silence. Aniyah looked swallowed tightly and her eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, which showed the equally downcast faces of Luka and Mira. "Well?" Aniyah prompted sharply but they too were quiet, and she let out a frustrated cry, a hand pressed over her mouth. Roman shifted uncomfortably in his spot, but he refused to look up.

"Roman, please," she pleaded from her seat.

Roman only closed his eyes in response, unwilling to look at his reflection in the window any longer.

* * *

And the _other_ time Roman got arrested – Well, that was just a total misunderstanding. He'd tried to be the responsible one. _Really._

"Hey dick," said an all too familiar voice, and Roman turned sharply to see his tall red-haired cousin standing in front of him, arms folded, pleased smile on her pretty features. Amazing how, despite the pounding music in the backalley party and the crowd of teens that danced around them, Daniella's voice managed to sound loud and clear. Must've been her mutant power, or something.

"What the hell," Roman set down his beer with his most superior look. "You shouldn't be here! You're too young. Where the hell is Damon? He didn't let you come alone."

"Present and accounted for," her twin popped up, easy smile on his relaxed features. Roman sighed heavily.

"And for your information," Dani said, typing away a speedy text on her phone and not looking up as she spoke, "You are only like, a year and a half older than us, so give up all this babysitting BS."

"Hey," Roman pointed to himself. "I'm the leader. I'm responsible for you guys. You two always do this, you never take me seriously, and – " He looked up, his eyes going wide, and his heart felt like it had gone straight to his feet. And perhaps somewhere else too, judging by the rush of blood. "Is that … is that Mira?" he croaked, and Dani's pleased smile grew.

"Oh, yeah," she said lightly, looking through the crowd of partying teenagers. "I gave her a little makeover for tonight. Cute, right?"

Cute. _Cute._ The sight of sixteen year old Mira wearing a form-fitting tank dress and heels, her curls tamed and her ever-present ballcap missing from her normally bushy head was anything – a _nything -_ but cute, especially when she was talking to two guys who were way, way too interested, and what in the hell was happening in the world? This was not okay!

 _Not hot. Not at all,_ he chanted firmly to himself as he shoved through the crowd, screaming internally because if one of those guys "accidentally" brushed against his best friend and adopted cousin one more time, he was going to break his arm.

"Hey," Roman said roughly, in a way that made it clear that 'hey' was not at all a greeting, but instead a very short and dangerous warning that needed no supplemental vocabulary. The two guys jerked their heads up – far up – to see Roman's face and then quickly excused themselves.

"Rome!" Mira scowled. "I was talking to them. Stop scaring people away, geez." Roman turned his gaze to the ceiling in desperate hope of divine patience.

"Mira, what are you doing here? You don't even go to parties!"

"Well, I thought I'd try for once, you know? Actually like, be a girl and junk." She winced and kicked up a leg behind her, massaging at her ankles. "These heels are bullshit, though, for real."

"Then take them off and go home!"

"What is your panic, Roman?" Mira hissed, cheeks flushing red.

"Yeah, Roman," Dani sidled up next to them and slid an arm around Mira's shoulders, thoroughly enjoying Roman's discomfort. The two glared at each other. "What's your panic? I mean, we're allowed to have a good time, right?"

"Why did you tart her up?" Roman demanded, shifting his irritation to Dani.

Mira repeated incredulously, " _Tart me up?"_ Damon appeared and watched calmly, arms folded as Mira continued. "Why am I not allowed to dress like a girl sometimes? Huh?" Roman sputtered.

"I didn't mean it like that – "

"Mind your own business!"

"I am the leader!" he repeated hotly, mostly because he was unsure of just what else to say.

Dani tossed up her free arm. "Oh my god, get over yourself. This is not the dojo, Roman. We are still our own people. It's in the Constitution. Look it up," Dani raised both eyebrows. Seeing this was quickly going downhill, Roman reached in his pocket for his keys. They were ALL going home.

Or at least, that was the plan, until –

"COPS!"

The single shout broke through the crowd, and just a moment of hesitation followed before teens began running in every direction, shrieking, laughing, stumbling and crying. The four Hamatos looked to each other with wide eyes filled with terror.

"Run!" Roman shouted, before turning tail and bursting through the wave of teenagers, away from where the swarm of uniformed police officers fought to gain control of the party and hand out tickets for underage drinking at the same time. While everyone else was forced to use the door, Roman leaped and easily caught the top of an old chain link fence, clearing the top of it in seconds just as Damon and Daniella did the same. Mira moved to jump, but she stopped with a shriek and tangled with the too-high heels she'd borrowed from Dani.

"Ah, shit!" she yelped, finally just ripping them off and tearing off barefoot, jumping high on the fence with practiced ease just as cops made a mad grab at her feet.

"Follow them!" one of the lawmen shouted, and Mira landed with a roll on the other side right next to her cousins.

"You left my shoes!" Dani cried out.

"JUST GO!"

The cops moved to clamber over the fence, and there weren't a lot of places to go, so Roman turned his head up to the New York City night sky and grinned. "Rooftop training?" he asked the others, and the twins and Mira smirked in return.

"Rooftop training!" Mira shouted excitedly. The four teens broke into sprints as the cops cleared the fence, each jumping high and snatching up fire escapes and ladders, leaping from spot to spot up to the many roofs.

"What the hell?" one of the cops cried below. "These kids with the freakin' circus?"

"Follow them on foot! They can't stay on roofs forever!" another commanded.

"Time to go!" Roman called out, turning and running over the rooftop at full speed, with Damon, Dani and Mira on his heels, each flipping and somersaulting over any obstacles in their way. Rooftop to rooftop, with sirens blaring in the distance and angry cops shouting at them from below. Large flashlights beams bounced over them as Roman leaped from one rooftop to the other with a loud laugh, rolling expertly on the roof just as the others came behind him.

"Whooaaa!" he skidded to a stop when he saw some cops scrambling up the fire escape in front of them.

"This way!" Dani ran and hopped onto a wire that stretched across the streets and held a banner, somehow managing to do all of this in her own set of heels, with Damon right behind her. Mira and Roman followed, barely escaping the cops, and the foursome hurried onto another rooftop before stopping to catch their breaths.

"Think we lost 'em," said Damon with a breathless snicker.

 _Clink._ Dani turned with a yelp only to see one end of a handcuff on her arm, and one very exhausted, very pissed off cop at the other end.

"Think again," he grunted.

* * *

The four teens sat in stony silence, not a word between them for nearly fifteen minutes, until finally –

"For the last time, Dani, I am sorry about your damn shoes!"

"Those were Jimmy Choos!" the redhead yelped from her side of the holding cell.

"I didn't have a choice!"

"If you can't do rooftop runs in four-inch heels, you don't deserve to call yourself a ninja!"

Roman and Damon sat in the middle of the bench, each staring warily at the bars of the holding cell. Damon glanced at his watch before he dropped his arm and said wryly, "I'm missing the Mets game."

"Everyone just relax," Roman held up a placating hand. "We'll be out of here soon."

"You're damn right, we will be! And the first thing Mira is going to do is find my damn shoes!"

"Shut up about your shoes!" shrieked Mira.

Roman dragged his hands down his face. "This wouldn't have happened if you'd all just left when I told you to!"

Dani crossed her legs at the knee in an unnecessarily aggressive manner and pursed her lips. "Oh, whatever, you're just mad because your lonely little boner got jealous when those guys were talking to Mira."

"ARGH!" Mira leaped across Roman and Damon's laps to claw at Dani, and soon the four of them were all tangled up in a brawl, which only stopped at the sound of a throat clearing outside the barred doors. The foursome looked up to see an annoyed police officer waiting on them to finish their altercation.

"Hamatos, you're getting bailed out," he said in a bored voice, before walking off.

Damon froze. "Please be Aunt Ame," he chanted. "Please be Aunt Ame. Please be Aunt Ame."

 _Slam._ The holding cell door opened with a loud, heavy clang to reveal the enraged face of April Hamato. Everyone inside the holding cell sat motionless for one long, horrifying moment. And then –

" _LEAVE US IN HERE!"_ screamed Damon.

* * *

The summer night air was warm, and the constant soundtrack of New York City filtered over them as the five teens sat on the rooftop edge, sweat still clinging to their skin from their last training run. Roman would begin college next year.

The twins and Mira would start their senior year. And even Luka, the baby of the group, would enter eighth grade. It was strange, how their family had evolved to become this clan within a clan.

Still, it worked.

"I wonder what other kids do after school every day," Damon commented mildly, twirling a nunchuck in his hand. "You know, in all that time we spend training."

"They get fat and lazy," Roman supplied, and Dani rolled her eyes as she fanned herself with her tessen.

"It's not like we'll ever actually have to fight," she said, shrugging one thin shoulder. "Mom and Dad and everyone else, they had all these enemies. We don't."

"Speak for yourself," said Mira, examining her long katana. "That old man down at the grocery store's been givin' me the evil eye for weeks. I'm just waiting for him to throw down with me over some avocadoes." At the incredulous looks from her cousins, she added, "I can't help if it he's too slow to get to the good ones! Survival of the fittest, bro."

"I hope nothing ever happens," Luka said, refitting his staff to the strap on his back. "We shouldn't hope for conflict." He paused, before looking down the row of seated teens to his eldest cousin. "But if something bad ever did happen – we'd be ready. Right?"

Roman looked down at Luka, away from his thoughtful inspection of the city lights, and realized belatedly that now all of his cousins were looking expectantly to him. Even the twins seemed to wait anxiously for his answer.

Roman looked back out to the city. "Of course we will," he said confidently, even though in reality, he didn't know if they could ever be fully prepared for what might be out there. "So long as we stick together, we'll be fine."

The city hummed with life, even that which wasn't evident from their high perch above the streets. It was impossible to see and know everything in New York City, no matter how long one lived there.

It was possible – likely, even - thought Roman, that there was still something out there with a vendetta against them. A new threat. An old evil.

But the more he thought about it, the more he'd been right in what he'd said to his cousins.

So long as they stuck together, they'd make it.

As a clan. As a family.

And maybe he wouldn't always make the right decision as leader, but _that_ was something he was sure of.

* * *

Author's Note: And that's it for the kids!

Or is it? (:


End file.
